Floor Traders Praise NYSE Officials’ Handling of Trading Glitch

When the market opened Wednesday, traders on the New York Stock Exchange floor say they knew that something wasn’t right.

“From the buzz on the [trading] floor, it was clear something was up,” said Mike Shea, managing partner with Direct Access Partners.

Almost 150 stocks had started changing hands with unusually large price swings and high volume. Knight Capital Group (KCG), a prominent brokerage, said shortly afterward that it was probing software problems.

Floor traders, who have dwindled in number with the rise of electronic trading, cited what they saw as a relatively quick response to the problem, which most attributed to a glitch in an electronic trading algorithm. The Big Board is seen as among the last of its breed with floor traders trafficking shares, in contrast to automated exchanges where trading exists only in computer networks.

“Part of what made this less of a disaster is that human beings are here,” said Kenneth Polcari, managing director with ICAP, a brokerage firm. “Rah rah for the little guy, who happens to be me.”